The MeerKAT telescope will be one of the most sensitive radio arrays in the pre-SKA era. Here we discuss a low-frequency SZ-selected cluster survey with MeerKAT, the MeerKAT Extended Relics, Giant Halos, and Extragalactic Radio Sources (MERGHERS) survey. The primary goal of this survey is to detect faint signatures of diffuse cluster emission, specifically radio halos and relics. SZ-selected cluster samples offer a homogeneous, mass-limited set of targets out to higher redshift than X-ray samples. MeerKAT is sensitive enough to detect diffuse radio emission at the faint levels expected in low-mass and high-redshift clusters, thereby enabling radio halo and relic formation theories to be tested with a larger statistical sample over a significantly expanded phase space. Complementary multiwavelength follow-up observations will provide a more complete picture of any clusters found to host diffuse emission, thereby enhancing the scientific return of the MERGHERS survey.
@article{arxiv.1709.03318,
title = {MERGHERS: An SZ-selected cluster survey with MeerKAT},
author = {Kenda Knowles and Andrew Baker and Kaustuv Basu and Vijaysarathi Bharadwaj and Roger Deane and Mark Devlin and Simon Dicker and Francesco de Gasperin and Chiara Ferrari and Matt Hilton and John P. Hughes and Huib T. Intema and Sphesihle Makhathini and Kavilan Moodley and Nadeem Oozeer and Christoph Pfrommer and Jonathan Sievers and Sinenhlanhla P. Sikhosana and Oleg Smirnov and Martin W. Sommer and Sara Stanchfield and Kurt van der Heyden and Jonathan T. L. Zwart},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1709.03318},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
12 pages, 3 figures, proceedings from MeerKAT Science: On the Pathway to the SKA, 25-27 May, 2016